


Feathers (mini fic)

by victoridiaz



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Mini Fic, Sad Crowley, no dialouge, no thoughts. head empty just feelings, warning this is depressing as all hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:27:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25888810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoridiaz/pseuds/victoridiaz
Summary: Crowley stares at the feather that falls to rest gently on the silky sheets beside him. It is black, like a Raven, a night sky, a streak of ink across a page. But there is something else there, too: tiny white strands, almost unnoticeable, right at the base of the feather. Soft as down, and bright as stars.Crowley is sad and also thinking about God and Angels.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Feathers (mini fic)

**Author's Note:**

> There's not much to this one. I just feel the emotion that Crowley seems to feel in my bones.   
> There is an artwork I did to accompany this if you want to check it out here: https://eravee.tumblr.com/post/626383493537185792/nothings-gonna-change-my-world

It's a nagging sadness. 

Sometimes Crowley will go for months without feeling it. Sometimes it will tug and pull and ache at his chest, and he can't shake the feeling of heaviness, of hopelessness.

Sometimes it will come crashing down like a waterfall, sneaking in through the lyrics of songs or a stolen glance or a soft, " _I'm sorry, Crowley,"_ that hits him with the force of a freight train. 

There are nights where he lies awake, wondering. He shouldn't even need sleep - and yet here he is, so wearily deprived of it. 

He is staring at the black feathers falling from the room. His wings are gone now, tucked into some other plane of existence, but even they cannot exist without leaving their mark in the world. He can feel the feathers ruffling uncomfortably in their silent dimension. He longs to take himself there, to pull himself out of this one. 

The milky nighttime light of London pours through the window, but he lies facing away from it. He cannot bear to look into the soft glow of blues and purples, but he cannot seem to close his eyes, so he settles for a compromise: staring into the dark shadows of the bedroom, his vision blurry and unfocused. 

Demons don't have hearts. They can't have hearts. 

Then why is there this blanket that covers him? This subtle agony? It is almost torturous in how gentle it is, and Crowley almost longs to feel it all at once, to scream and cry and make himself enormous and microscopic all at the same time - but for some reason he can not. 

Because it isn't a violent sadness. It's a twisted sort of love, a hopeless sort of glance that he can't shake from his head. It's all the times Aziraphale has ever looked at him, and all the times Crowley has quietly resented hell, all the times he has silently grieved for humanity. 

Because, when he is completely alone, with only the darkness and the faraway sounds of the city for company, Crowley whispers to God. He will not call it a prayer - he cannot - but it is one, a sort of twisted, wretched one all the same. 

Sometimes he has so much doubt in everything. How could She let this happen? How could She have let him fall, and still taunt him with thoughts of grief and love? Demons aren't supposed to love. It is against their entire nature. Crowley detests the thought of ineffability; the thought that everything has been planned out beforehand, with careful knowledge of outcomes and losses, and sacrifices made in the right places. It wasn't _fair._ Nobody on Earth knew any of that. How many people would die for the greater good? 

He almost whispered it out loud. _How many people will die?_

Something stops him, and it is a faraway thought, barely a feeling in his mind. A question of _why,_ of _how._

Crowley stares at the feather that falls to rest gently on the silky sheets beside him. It is black, like a Raven, a night sky, a streak of ink across a page. But there is something else there, too: tiny white strands, almost unnoticeable, right at the base of the feather. Soft as down, and bright as stars. 

Tears well at the corners of his eyes, but they are quiet, and they come and go and Crowley feels no better. He fiddles with a piece of hair, his mind lost in thoughts of planets and nebulae and Her and Aziraphale, always Aziraphale. 

Because after all this time, Crowley still has faith. He just doesn't know where to put it. So he tucks it away into the back of his mind, and there it stays, always, forever. 

Here is Crowley, lost in a world of his own, one he desperately wants to break free of.

Here is Aziraphale, a few miles away, sitting under flickering candlelight, watching the shadows dance along the shelves. Aziraphale has faith of a different kind, faith in the ineffable and all-powerful, faith in something who can make things right again. For him, She feels only like a memory, a distant feeling that prickles around his shoulders. He is one who - at one time - has spoken to Her, and feels Her silence now in the depths of his heart. He wonders what it must be like to be human - to be able to pray to God without all the hassle and paperwork. 

He has never questioned the Ineffable. He has always questioned himself. 

The light flickers on the table, and he thinks of miracles and long-lost lives of humans and of what he will have for breakfast in the morning. 

And Crowley. Always Crowley. 


End file.
